HEATHER CHINNOCK
DISAPPEARED
APRIL 2001TIFFANY DREW
DISAPPEARED
DECEMBER 1999DIANA MELNICK
DISAPPEARED
DECEMBER 1995doodles. His expression rarely wavered
as he stared into space or glanced at a
witness. Occasionally he chuckled or
perused the 24-page booklet composed
for the court about the victims: Mona
Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea
Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina
Papin and Marnie Frey.
It was ironic that despite the grisly
narrative of his crimes, media coverage
of the trial was erratic over the 12
months it lasted – due mainly to the
interminable procession of forensic
witnesses and the dry scientific data
they described.
In April, after 60 witnesses had taken
the stand for the prosecution, attorneys
from both sides met to try and shorten
the proceedings.
From time to time, the judge ordered
brief recesses after jurors became
visibly shaken by graphic evidence
or testimony – like the witness who
claimed she had seen Pickton skinning
and gutting a nude female corpse hung
up on a meat hook in one of the pig
sheds.
Jurors also heard how Pickton had
bragged to an undercover cop planted
in his cell that he had killed 49 women
and planned “to make it an even fifty.”
When the cop suggested the best way
to dispose of bodies was to dump them
at sea, Pickton said he could “go one
better than that,” and described how
he fed them into the mincer.
Scott Chubb was one of the
prosecution’s key witnesses. He told
the court that Pickton had asked
him to get rid of a woman called
Lynn Ellingsen who was allegedly
blackmailing him over something she
had witnessed.
Chubb said Pickton offered him
Can$1,000 to do the job and told him
it was easy to kill drug addicts because
they already had needle marks and
tracks and you could inject them with
windscreen washer fluid. When they
died, the police would dismiss it as an
overdose.
The defence rested on challenging
the credibility of key Crown witnesses,
and alleging that DNA evidence
pointed more to Pickton’s friends
than to the accused. Friends, workers,
TANYA HOLYK
DISAPPEARED
OCTOBER 1996INGA MONIQUE HALL
DISAPPEARED
FEBRUARY 1998ANGELA JARDINE
DISAPPEARED
NOVEMBER 1998SHERRY IRVING
DISAPPEARED
1997CYNTHIA FELIKS
DISAPPEARED
DECEMBER 1997SARAH DE VRIES
DISAPPEARED
APRIL 1999